Five Times a Headline from The Onion Became Real

When the Iran nuclear deal was unveiled last month, there was a wide array of responses: excitement, apprehension, confusion from people who don’t know what “negotiations” are. And, perhaps predictably, there were some ruffled feathers from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel's Haaretz Newsreported that President Obama actually offered to enhance Israel’s military capacity in order to make the country’s critics more comfortable.

Unfortunately for Haaretz, the story had already been scooped—by satirical newspaper The Oniona day before.

In the last few years, the phrase “This is just like The Onion predicted!” has been floated around, and it turns out the fake publication's writers have a knack for predicting news before it happens, sometimes years before. The formula is hardly rocket science: They can take a cultural phenomenon—or someone’s behavior, or a political movement—and extrapolate it to the point of absurdity. And every so often, the stars align and the punchline becomes real. Here are just a few of them.

Onion Headline: Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequences

In 2014 we got the worst portmanteau ever: affluenza. A wealthy teenager was sentenced to some light rehab after killing four people in a drunk driving accident, and the story might have ended there if it weren’t for the judge’s reasoning. Because the kid was so wealthy, he had no way of knowing that there would be consequences for his actions. And since he didn’t KNOW he could get in trouble for killing four people, he couldn’t be PUNISHED for killing four people:

It literally brought a whole new dimension to the idea that the rich could get away with anything.

Six years earlier, however, The Onion had an eerily similar story about a teen who crashed into a van full of people and “a team of high-powered attorneys rushed to the scene and rescued him from the brink of personal responsibility.”

Onion Headline: Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business

In February of this year, RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and people promptly started making “Hey, did you know RadioShack was still in business?!!!???!” jokes.

That joke was stale, mostly because The Onion had made the same quip a few years earlier in 2007 with a faux-interview with the company’s CEO, where he admits that it makes no sense how RadioShack isn’t in the ground yet. This piece was unusually technical for The Onion since it includes actual graphs and such, claiming that RadioShack profits SHOULD have bottomed out back in 2005.

Onion Headline: Athlete Overcomes Rape

Like its sister story about a rich teen escaping punishment, The Onion’s SportsDome video chronicling a fictional athlete successfully overcoming his rape allegations was a cultural indictment. “This story and how we react to it is shockingly common but when we say it explicitly there’s no way it doesn’t sound like a joke.”

Then a real story breaks that catches national attention and we see just how dark The Onion’s comedy actually is. So much of the SportsDome story matches up with the nightmare of Steubenville that it’s difficult to watch it and find anything funny.

Onion Headline: Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades

Before the resurgence of mustache wax and safety razors, before every man’s birthday gift of choice was a silvertip badger hair brush, the mark of quality for shaving accoutrement was “How many blades does it have?” And the answer for Gillette’s products has always been: “The most blades.” Here, The Onionwas at its most prescient all the way back in 2004, setting the table for when Gillette was inevitably outbladed by the Schick Quattro, AND BATTERIES.

A year later, Gillette decided to just whip out all they had and upped their game to five blades.